Stroll with spirits during Chicago Architecture Foundation's Graceland Cemetery Tour

October 17, 9:02 AMChicago Neighborhood ExaminerDana Kavan

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Chicago Neighborhood Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Dexter Graves statue/Courtesy of PrairieGhosts.com

Walking around a historic cemetery that harbors several ghost stories sounds like a perfectly frightening pre-Halloween activity, right? In truth, Graceland Cemetery, established in 1860, is more striking than spooky, with bold monuments designed by prominent architects like Lorado Taft and Louis Sullivan. The tour's mid-afternoon start time also hampers its creepiness, but for 10 bones (pun intended) you'll get to gaze at the beauty of it all while scoring a history lesson.

The original Chicago City Cemetery was located where Lincoln Park exists today. When officials deemed the cemetery a health hazard in 1871, they moved many of the bodies to Graceland, which once sat two miles outside city limits in a town called Lake View (sound familiar?). Today the cemetery is part of Uptown, located off Clark Street from Irving Park to Montrose Avenue.

Many prominent Chicagoans are buried at Graceland, including Marshall Field, George Pullman and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Hotelier Dexter Graves' body also lies there, capped with a monument that's allegedly haunted. It's said that anyone who looks into the face of the Graves statue will have visions of their own death. It's also believed that the statue is impossible to photograph because cameras won't work in its presence, so take the stories for what their worth (ahem, see image above).

Another Graceland ghost story, that of six-year-old Inez Clark's full-size rendering enclosed in a glass box, is a bit more haunting. People report hearing sobbing sounds near her grave, and guards allegedly have seen the statue disappear from the box. Scared into taking the tour yet?